The 2008 World Series has come and gone and will most likely, in a little less than three months, will come again. In the meantime, while cleaning out the computer(s) we’ve come across these “lost” episodes … recorded in the tail days of the main event. But this is everything … there’s no more, OK? At least not for now. So if you’d like to step back into the WSOP for just a few minutes at a time to the vocal stylings of yours truly and Dr. Pauly, by all means, have a listen/download. Some of it actually seems a little extra interesting with the benefit of a month-or-so of hindsight.

For the entire WSOP season click here.

The heretofore unheard old-new episodes, salvaged from the cut-and-pasting room floor:

Episode 30: The Cost of Donuts
Grubby joins the media to talk main event numbers and the price of trendy donuts in today’s oil economy. (3:19)

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Episode 31: Scotchy Poker
Dan+scotch early in the WSOP day=talk of Dario Minieri and Isabelle Mercier. (4:02)

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Episode 32: French Warfare
Benjo takes over the mic when Dan calls in drunk, and he and Pauly talk more about Isabelle Mercier live from the Day 2 killing fields. (5:14)

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Episode 33: New York & Texas
Michele Lewis joins in as Dan and Pauly break down the difference between Texas and New York humor, or at least the difference between Pauly and Dan. (2:40)

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Episode 34: Go Team!
Dallas’ Raj Kattamuri is going deep, and Pauly tracks down Dan in the poker kitchen to find out what it takes to be patched up on Team Pokerati. (2:37)

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Episode 35: No Wiener
Benjo is not his usual jovial self as the main event comes to a close and he bids farewell to his American friends in the penultimate WSOP episode of Tao of Pokerati. (4:41)

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Episode 36: Unhookered
The traditional late-late night poker-blogger farewell binge drinking at the Rio’s Hooker Bar, with guest appearances by Otis and Mean Gene. (3:29)

 

Karridy knows how to represent.

Despite negative reports about a too-fast blind structure and terrible dealers — from players who may or may not have been juiced with some residual Day 1-bustout tilt and therefore focusing on isolated incidents inherent to putting on any event that’s bigger than any other you’ve put on before — I couldn’t stand it … I just had to get in on the action. Sounds like too much fun going on at The River, and who better to buy a small piece of than Karridy? I like his chances. After all the last tourney he played with notably bad blind structures and dealers — he won!

He also apparently got the last spot available for Thursday, and if I learned anything from running Lodge tourneys, it’s that late-late entrants seem to have a disproportionately high percentage of Top 3 finishes. Seriously. Not sure why that is, but it’s true. I’ve seen it. You know, math …

Let’s get this out of the way up front. Now that I’m joining the Pokerati team (Do I get a jersey? Is number 17 available?), you’re going to see me writing about the “sport” of poker.

Then the comments will start. “Poker’s not a sport!” “Are chess and Monopoly sports, too?” “Next you’ll be telling us that sitting on the couch watching poker is a sport!”

I make my living with words, and I take them very seriously. No, poker is not a sport. To me (and many dictionaries), a sport requires two components: physical activity and competition. Poker is a competition without physical activity, so it’s not a sport. The same goes for carpentry, which is a physical activity without competition — again, not a sport.

But I’ll continue to call poker a sport, because the metaphor works.

Click the “more” button to find out why. Or you can click “Comments” to just go ahead and call me an idiot.

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Grumble grumble … things looked to be going so well for Pat Poels. for the past two days, his stacks hardly appeared to be changing, even though he was consistently staying just ahead of average. And he did this all while getting no cards. (Day 1 he got good cards, Day 2 and 3 not so much, which seemed to bode well for Day 4 and/or 5.)

Though I’m sure he’s not happy about it, he finished in a commendable 310th place, for $32,166.

With a double-up on his first hand, and a favorable flop on his next push, we started to believe … alas, the World Series has ended for Whit, who repped Dallas, Texas, Pokerati, and average white guys with day jobs well.

Whit is now 2-for-2 when it comes to main event cashes. This year he’ll be bringing home 28,950 pre-tax American dollars to donk off in Oklahoma.

Net: +$18,950

Not bad for an extra-exciting summer trip to V-town.

Mean Gene’s official hand recount for PokerNews:

Whitney Blanton Eliminated

A few hands after doubling up against Adam Zinn, Whitney Blanton again moved all in and was called by Sarkis Akopyan. Blanton held to Akapyan’s and took the lead from Sarkis when the flop came . But the turn brought the , giving Akopyan the straight and leaving Whitney needing a king or queen for the full house. But the {4-Hearts} fell on the river and Blanton’s Main Event came to an end.

747 733 players survived to make the dinner break, trying not to crash eliminate themselves just short of the money at a devilish 666. Strangely, the current chip leader has less chips than the leader at the end of day 2 as Brian Schaedlich, who started with 801,000 in chips has gone under 300,000 in chips after Jeff Kimber flopped a set of queens to Brian’s AA in a 681,000 chip pot (he’s since recovered to be just under 500,000 in chips). However, the leader going into the dinner break is Jeremiah Smith, with 766,000 in chips. Kimber’s in 4th with the Satan-like 666,000, other notables with a pretty good stack include Victor Ramdin, prospective member of Team Pokerati Raja Kattamuri, Matt Matros, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, James McManus (not the author), Chip Jett, Brandon Cantu, and Steve Bilirakis. Notable players who won’t have to worry about the bubble: Chris Moneymaker, Phil Gordon, Tony Hachem, Andy Griggs, and Steve Zolotow. More updates can be found at the WSOP.com site here.

Once the players return from dinner break, there’s a couple more two-hour levels left for today, but the bubble will be looming in that first level, we’ll see if the tournament staff adds time back to that level and maybe stop play after it’s broken, depending on the time of course.

As action gets underway on day 2B, we’ve got a few players you may or may not know that we’ll be paying a little extra attention to. Be sure to check in with CSR for some chip reports from and about:

Whit Blanton — He’s a wannabe semi-pro from Dallas, who’s almost made enough money in poker to quit his job. He sat at the same table as Pokerati teammate (P-mates?) Tom Schneider on Day 1, and took a little extra pleasure in reclaiming the chips that Tom had given to Mark Newhouse … particularly doing so by cracking Newhizzle’s aces with a skillfully played 68s. Whit starts the day in strong chip position with 101,450. The question to him on Day 2 is how he will wield it, especially when fueled by the boost of confidence a near-double-up at the end of Day 1 provided.

Pat Poels — He’s a two-time bracelet-winner and host at Casino Arizona who’s had an “OK” WSOP. He’s made more money than most of his buddies this year, but hasn’t yet had the big score to make his 2008 WSOP highly profitable. He had some stretches of really good cards in Day 1, which forced him to make some really big/frustrating/difficult laydowns. He goes into Day 2 with 64,650 chips.

Jerry Randack — Jerry’s a well-rounded player who burst onto the scene with a strong 2nd-place finish in the 2007 Pokerati Invitational, and has since found much success at the small-tourney tables. He cashed in a NLH event at the Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge III, took 2nd in Triple-Draw Lowball in the Oklahoma State Poker Championship, and final tabled earlier this summer in a Binion’s Poker Classic PLO event. We’ll find out how he handles the Day 2 pressure of a short-ish stack — 29,700 — with blinds beginning to rise.

The Big Randy – TBR played comfortably throughout Day 1, and though he starts with a below-average stack — 27,100 — the self-proclaimed top-ranked all-around Batface (cash-game and tournament results) really likes the structure and recognizes the deep-stack nature of this tourney is still in play. “Feels like ‘05,” he says, referring to his first main event where he nursed a much shorter stack for four day before cashing for $40k.

Robert Goldfarb – After “Goldfarbing” his way into the main event, he sits with 21,025 chips and has just been playing his game … though the cards haven’t yet come and he hasn’t yet gained any real traction. How the start of Day 2 goes for him, I think will be critical.

This hedline could refer to thousands of players, of course, but I’m talkin’ bout Pokerati’s own Donkey … who busted out on the near last hand. He re-raised with a broadway open-ender, got called with a flush draw, and a club on the turn did him in. Nice go, though Donk!

By the way, he apparently drove Beth Shak nuts — his K-J suckout against hre A-J really set her off. By the way, fyi Donkey, she gave me some of your tells. You apparently blink your eyes a lot when the flop hits you … and you stack your chips individually when you are about to make a move. Just sayin’ …

Argh, it’s getting frustrating … so much stuff going on that it’s hard to keep up, let alone post about it. So here’s a bit of everything:

6,844 entrants in the 2008 WSOP main event.

I jut had a wonderful discussion with WPT honcho Steve Lipscomb. He didn’t laugh when I asked him if he was looking for a job with the WSOP.

Team Pokerati updates:

Tom Schneider is hurting. Like 7k in chips last we checked.

Donkey texts in (we’re still getting his CSR set up) — “Back down to 20k after 2nd level.. Thought Micon was playing AK. he had 77. I had 66. Cost 4k to see river”

Damn, that sucks. And oh yeah, Donkey is playing with Micon from Neverwin two or three seats to his left, and Beth Shak on the other end of the table. (Donkey doesn’t know who she is — but he is aware that she is all patched up.

Jerry Randack was doing fine last I checked. Saw him skillfully (albeit a bit cautiously) play Ace-rag with an ace on the flop, and build a nice pot to the point that he got a really nice call by the time he rivered the nut flush.

No report on Robert Goldfarb. Serves him right for not wearing his patch. But he is texting in his status on breaks.

The Big Randy looks to be playing very comfortably … with about 26k in chips.

More TK, of course. The big buzz of the day wasn’t about Phil Hellmuth’s pro wrestling-esque army-tank entrance … it was about the presence of Ultimate Fighters, including Chuck Liddell and Forest Griffin, who won a big fight just last night.

Um, go poker!

UPDATE: There was a rumor about some smaller agents being shaken down by a bigger one. It didn’t check out, however, on first call … but there’s gotta be something to it — the agent battles are getting harsh as all compete for a piece of nine heretofore unknown needles in a a haystack of 6,844.

About an hour ago, Tom Grunheid left the building. After a valiant effort and making it through the better part of the day, he moved his short stack and lost.

Evidently, Tom had a good time at his first WSOP event, and as he remains in town for the next few days, he plans to take down a smaller tournament (or two) at some other Vegas casinos. Best of luck!

Our horse of the day has about 14,500 chips. He looks very focussed — so much so that he seemed a little put off by some unprofessional media guy who went up to him in the middle of play and said, “Hi Tom, I’m Dan.”

That’s our (Day 1C) guy!

UPDATE: He was down to about 12,000 chips when I first checked on him, but now, at 150/300 blinds, he’s got about 28k in chips.

Pokerati reader Tom Grunheid won his seat to the 2008 WSOP main event and is representing a group of 28 friends here today.

He was here about 20 minutes early when the doors first opened with his carry-cooler full of snacks and other necessities. Included in there was his massive visor that earned him the nickname “SuperVisor.” He has yet to don the visor at the table, but he might just be waiting for the right moment.

After the first hand, Tom still had a full stack. Way to go! No big names at his table, which is probably the most desirable way to start his first WSOP event ever. We’re sitting behind our computers rooting for you, Tom!

You can follow along as he texts his updates to CSR throughout the day.

I know the talk is going to be centered on the Main Event for a while, but there’s another tournament circuit that is starting in a couple of weeks with some Pokerati talent behind it. The Continental Poker Championship has its debut at the Turning Stone Casino and Resort in Verona, NY later this month. The final table is scheduled to air locally (on Time Warner Sports in the Central New York area) in October, and maybe to a TV near you shortly after that. Pokerati’s own Tom Schneider and Eric Ulis, CPC founder/president will be providing the commentary. The plan is to have a Main Event and its own Circuit in various casinos around North America, with a schedule to be announced soon.

What’s happening tonight at the WSOP:

Jen and Dan are taking care of the HORSE event, so I don’t need to duplicate their work, but they’re about to return from dinner break 5-handed.

The $2,000 NL Holdem event was won by Brazilian Alexandre Gomes, the first for that country, moving them up big time in the World Standings. Gomes takes home just over $770,000 while Marco Johnson won’t be feeling super with his 2nd place earnings of just over $491,000.

The $1,500 NL Holdem event is down to 40 as they play down to their final table. Among the notables remaining: JC Tran, Men Nguyen, Andy Black, Joe Pelton, Hevad Kahn. Follow their action on the World Series of Poker website here.

Other tournament action, following the leap:
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UPDATE: No-stakes Dallas Amateur-turned-Vegas small-stakes pro David Pflaster is hanging in there. Has built his stack back up to about 6,000.

“I did stop-and-go,” he said, “the best play in poker … He raised it up and i couldn’t go all-in because I only had like 1,500 more, so I just flat called and bet all-in on the flop.”

“Ah, because in that situation it doesn’t matter what you have or if it hits you — you’re just banking on it not hitting him.”

“Yeah, but it did hit me,” and he folded.

Hmm, so in that case a check wouldn’t have been better? Maybe not. Still, good stuff, DP … back in survivable action … with 520 of 2,317 remaining. Money kicks in at 198.

UPDATE: Pflaster is out. He built his stack up to 8,500 by making moves. First go was all-in with J-3 … tight table, his short stack still big enough to hurt any and all of them … everybody folds.

Next hand: AK … can’t just raise a little bit, so he moves all-in again … no one calls.

Next hand: . Same move again … by this point players are getting suspicious, but he still has too many chips for any of them to call … except for the dude with pocket queens. Flopped a 9, but never improved. Totally crippled, moves all-in in the dark in the next hand, late-position min-raises … they’re heads-up, but Pflaster’s Q7s fails to outflop-turn-river the raisers K-J.

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Playing under our little satanic-spade banner … David Pflaster. Some of you may recall … he got his start playing at the Lodge and before you knew it was getting aces tattooed on his forearms, dealing in Dallas, and about a year ago moved to Las Vegas to make it as a low-stakes pro.

He actually seems to be doing it — says he’s just slightly better than breaking even in cash games while hitting some “big” scores in tourneys. More than $20k in the past few months in Caesar’s freerolls, another $10k win online … today he’s playing in the $2,000 NLH event … and with about half the field eliminated just before dinner break, he’s a pretty-big stack with about 18,000 chips (more than double the avg.). Seen here after just having taken out a player who moved all-in on his big blind in a hand where he woke up with pocket kings.

NOTE TO SELF: Satanic Spade … good name for a new death metal band!

UPDATE: According to Pflaster: “Dude, my Aces ran into Jacks.” His opponent was apparently a relative big-stack … so he’s now down to 3600, with blinds at 300/600 … and Pflaster in the big blind on the next hand after dinner break.

Yikes. But at the same time, on the previous break he and I talked about this exact situation, and how he’s learned his way out of it. We’ll see, no?